THE streets of Berlin are quieter than those of Athens, but the euro crisis is making life almost as hellish for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as it is for the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou. Partly because of it, Mrs Merkel is going through her “roughest patch so far” in more than five years in office, says Renate Köcher of Allensbach, a pollster. Members of her coalition, consisting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sibling, the Christian Social Union, and the liberal Free Democratic Party, are restive about the costs of saving the currency. The opposition is openly speculating, prematurely, that the government may fall.

The immediate danger is the wrangle over a second rescue for Greece. On June 10th the Bundestag endorsed a bail-out on condition that private investors make a “fair contribution”. Even then, ten legislators from the coalition either voted no or abstained, a worrying dent in the government's 20-vote majority. Since then, Mrs Merkel's room for manoeuvre has narrowed. On June 17th, under French pressure, she endorsed the non-confrontational “Vienna” model, under which Greece's creditors are expected voluntarily to buy new Greek bonds as old ones fall due. That makes it less likely that they will make the large contribution that Mrs Merkel's parliamentary allies are demanding.

Television images of Greeks haranguing their government over reforms do not help. The protests make it “very difficult for MPs to explain the rescue measures to voters”, says Klaus-Peter Flosbach, the CDU's fiscal-policy spokesman in the Bundestag. Nearly half the electorate favours throwing Greece out of the euro, according to a recent poll. Depending on how it is structured, the Greek rescue may not need explicit approval by the Bundestag, but there will be pressure to bring it to a vote. If that happens the coalition will support it, believes Mr Flosbach. “The MPs know what is at stake.” The mood is fiercer in Finland and the Netherlands, which have influential Eurosceptic parties, German officials point out.

Even if the Greek hurdle is overcome, others loom. The Bundestag will vote later this year on whether to top up the temporary European Financial Stability Facility, which helped to finance the Irish and Portuguese bail-outs, and to create a permanent successor, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Many coalition MPs want every ESM rescue put to a parliamentary vote, which would make it unworkable. Germany's highest court is deliberating on complaints that the bail-outs violate the constitution and European law.

Mrs Merkel sees herself as steering between catastrophic alternatives. Hawkish demands for imposing losses on creditors or submitting every future bail-out to parliamentary scrutiny could endanger the euro. But the doveish idea that only “more Europe” will resolve the crisis is also distasteful. Mrs Merkel rejects fixes such as a finance minister for the euro area (an idea floated by Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank) or “Eurobonds” backed by every country in the zone. To spectators on both sides her cautious middle course, with its many abrupt corrections, looks directionless, defensive and eventually doomed.